Posts Tagged ‘India’

The  Commonwealth Games which was touted to be India’s show of new power and splendour is soon becoming another show of the deep corruption that the country is pickled in. From the bureaucracy that needs to be paid in the order of their status to nepotism, India is unable to come out of  these ‘tags’ while hosting international sporting events.

To the nouveau Indian wanting to see development and the doing away of corruption and introduction of transparency, the fact that eight RTI (Right To Information) activists were killed in seven months shows there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

While a large number of people question why the country made the bid to host the CWG in the first place, others hoped the capital city will be spruced up to international standards. Terminal 3 of the Indira Gandhi International airport is probably the only saving grace in the corruption hit games now.

From exorbitant prices from treadmills to toilet paper, Suresh Kalmadi and honchos seem to have milked crores of rupees at every possible point. The money trails all lead to more sleaze and nepotism.

For sports-lovers the anguish is in how all this money could have actually given better protein rich food to the Rugby team or better facilities to sportsmen and women in the country.

For now The Commonwealth Games is fast turning into India’s shame and the 8% growth the country is showing seems to be all hollow. Sports in the country is really only about cricket and the highly successful IPL too had its share of sleaze.

Most people would tend to agree with former sports minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, when he shocked people a few weeks ago with this statement…

“I am very happy with the rains, firstly because it will ensure a good agriculture for the country and secondly because it will ensure that the Commonwealth Games are spoilt”

A day ago Indian football captain Baichung Bhutia came out with a more scathing remark…

“It’s not a good idea to host the Games. What are the parameters for hosting a good Games? Fancy roads, which we have (in Delhi). Fancy airport, which we have. But what we don’t have is proper infrastructure. The government is not aware of the real picture of our infrastructure”

India national reputation continues to be of corruption, sleaze and lack of transparency, but of late, a lot of it is being exposed through a watchful media and that is a huge change for the country.

India’s premier business school, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and the glitches that happened on its first online CAT (Common Admission Test) has put a lot of aspirants in a state of limbo. While rumours are rife that there is going to be a written re-test in January nothing is clear yet. All seven IIMs had signed a 5-year contract with Prometric to conduct online CAT tests all over the country.

The first three days of the test had problems ranging from server crashing to hours lost in finger-printing and photographing, to a few getting more time for their test while others having PCs crashing mid-way. The fourth day had lesser problems but had its share of problems as well.

A recent update on the CAT website says, “The decision to conduct computerised CAT was taken unanimously by all IIMs. The contract for delivery of computerised CAT was awarded to Prometric, a world leader in computerised test delivery. IIMs were responsible for generating questions for the tests and Prometric was responsible for conducting the test…”

IIM Lucknow director Devi Singh said: “There is a certain level of output that is expected and everything will have to be reviewed. We will evaluate the entire experience of CAT 2009 after all this is over, and if problems pile up, everything concerning the 5-year contract with Prometric will need to come back to the table afresh. We will be professionals,” he said.

The IIMs are India’s pride and the focal point for multi-nationals looking to recruit the crème of the country. So there is a global reputation at stake now for the CAT but to be fair they have never had to deal with any  dent in reputation in the written tests that have been conducted all these years. So mighty is the IIM brand reputation and the national reputation it gives to India that this is an issue that need quick solving.

As for Prometric, after bagging this prestigious order itis now having to do some serious company crisis management of its own. This was the make or break deal, damage limitation should be the way ahead for them. Watch this space for updates on whether they will scrap the online tests all together or plough on with the decisions made.